Happy Birthday Fantastic Four! Did you know they're all 50 now? Yep, America's squarest and most super-powered, dysfunctional, but happy family is now a half century old, and what better way to celebrate than with a brand spanking new, lovingly crafted pinball table?

Releasing this week on XBLA it'll slot right in next to your existing Pinball FX 2 tables. While the PSN version will inevitably come at a later date thanks to the recent service outages, much like the delayed Sorcerer's Lair table. Of course we'll let you know as soon as they both show, up on our news pages.

The table itself is up to Zen Studios' usual stellar standards with the art having that highly polished back-lit effect the team does so well. There's super three-dimensional figures of the whole team dotted about the table including arch-villain Doctor Doom who will shout put-downs at you in a booming voice if you lose you ball. The voice work on this table is worth more than a passing mention actually with each character having their own high quality quips and phrases. The voice-acting is spot on, and the actors cast nigh on perfectly.

Game-play wise the table is a lot faster than the last MARS table, but it still rewards carefully placed shots with mission modes activated by hitting the Baxter Building at the top right of the table. To give you an example of the kinds of missions you'll be undertaking, one scenario sees you igniting the (recently deceased in the comics) Human Torch, and building up his flame by using the spinner until he turns nova, this will set fire to your ball, which will in turn let you engulf sections of the table in flame.

All of the characters on the table have their own fun mission modes, and if you manage to polish them all off, you'll have to steel yourself for an ultimate show down with Galactus himself.

This is a really fun and fast table which has the potential for high scores and I can see any Pinball fan wanting to spend a lot of time with it. I must admit to not being a huge Fantastic Four fan, but this table is as good as any contained within the core Marvel Pinball bundle.

As for the final score, how could I not give this a Fantastic Four out of five?

User Comments:

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Top review Chris, and I think I know where I'll be spunking the last dribbles of my MS points. Pinball FX2 (and its predecessor) are probably the best videogame pinball suites available and until I can afford a proper table, they'll do me!

Download Pinball FX2, from there you can demo each and every table. There are two packs of four tables at 800pts each, those being the Pinball FX 2 core pack and the Marvel Pinball Core pack. All the individual tables released afterwards can be downloaded by themselves for between 200-240 microsoft moon points. I'd recommend going for MARS first, ease yourself back in :D